January 22, 2014

It's cold.  Again.  Three degrees below zero. Wind chill - 8 degrees below. 

I'm sitting in a big comfortable chair, across from a gas flame fireplace at the Public Library, doing my daily dutiful search for my new occupation. I've reviewed emails, alerts and network group posts and I've recorded every detail of those activities in my daily log.  (That daily log, with excruciating detail, is required in order to maintain my status for unemployment benefits.) Technically, I have to search for a job (career, occupation) at least 3 times a week.  I far exceed that requirement, because I really, really want to work again. And soon.

After 53 years, there are a few things that I know for certain about myself.  I am NOT good at NOT doing anything.  I like challenge. I like to be surrounded by energy. I like when things are changing around me rapidly, requiring me to adjust. I like routine. Routine that requires me to go somewhere and do something, regularly. So, in order that I not go stark raving mad, I've self-assigned a few chores.  Chores at least keep me somewhat physically busy.  Keeping my mind busy is the real challenge.

I fill the bird feeders (except for the weekend, when I think mom really enjoys doing it.)  Sounds simple, but my mother has a specific mix of seed and several feeders that require that mix to be placed in certain areas. There are low/no waste black oil sunflower seeds, a mixture of varied seeds with berries and cracked corn and other things that I can't really identify, and some tiny little round seeds for, well, I would assume, the really tiny birds? There is also a feeder meant for the squirrels, although they seem to hang upside down on the other bird feeders and get exactly what they want there as well. The squirrels get corn, sunflower seeds and the multi-mix in an old cedar feeder (really old) whose roof is held on with a blue bungee cord. Then all the birds and squirrels, and occasionally an opossum, get breadcrumbs - dried and crumbled by hand. There is a steady supply of fresh bread dried for those crumbs. My mother, you could say, has a real addiction to fresh bakery bread, toasted, with peanut butter.  She says it's very satisfying, good for her and a bit of a "treat" after dinner. 

Bird seed, corn, berries, nuts.

Tiny bird seed and tiny birds.

I shovel the paths and walkways when it snows; and the driveway, if my nephew with the snowplow is busy plowing other driveways for cash. There is a sidewalk to the front porch and another to the back door.  Then there are paths to the back door of the garage (where the bird seed lives in rattling, silver, metal garbage cans), and the paths to the bird and squirrel feeders. There's the path to the outside water spigot (used to fill the heated birdbath, yes heated. Those little guys need water to drink and bathe in, although there is less bird hygiene in the winter than in the warmer months of the year. And without the heater, the water would freeze into a little tiny skating rink.) And then, of course, the short path to the back deck where the heated birdbath is secured to the deck rails. The bird feeders, along with a few suet logs, are hung on our old swing set frame. And we've been re-stocking the recycled Christmas tree with more of a homemade mixture of puffed rice, honey, sunflower seeds and peanut butter.  They seem to really like it.

Recycled Christmas tree.

I also take the food garbage (peels, avocado pits, banana peels, etc.) out…that is, outside.  There are two destinations for such things. One is the compost pile, which requires a short trek across the backyard and into the woods.  And two is the deer pen - the Jurassic Park deer pen, across the road, the barnyard and behind the chicken coop. Mom thought she had to school me in what deer might eat and what they might not, but she neglected Katie, the one-horned (seriously evil-looking) goat, who will, indeed eat everything. Mom sometimes forgets that I was actually raised in the country and have only spent the last 30 or so years living in the "city." You can't really get that country totally out of the girl. 

Jurassically penned deer.

If you've read my first post, you'll remember that I am also "self-appointed" in charge of the recycling. I've done what I can to recycle the hundreds (seriously, hundreds) of magazines. So much so, that after two HUGE piles of magazines appeared at the end of the driveway a few weeks ago, the recycling guy stopped me and asked if we were going to have that sort of recycling on a regular basis.  He was going to have to bring a bigger truck. 

Then there's the plastic, including Harry's discarded mango yogurt cups. Mom requires that the foil from the yogurt cups (and the cups themselves) be washed clean. The water bottles have the paper labels torn from them (as well as the soup cans) and the caps discarded. They are not recyclable. All the bottles and cans have to be washed clean and dried. She also insists that the little rings around the tops of the bottles (the remainder of the caps) be cut off.  After attempting to remove said little rings several times and slicing my hand and finger more than once (she insists on using an old and therefore very dull knife), I presented mom with a pair of "recycling scissors". Very pointed, very sharp scissors that snip those little rings from the plastic bottle's neck with ease. She loved them. I love them.

My sister and I are trying to purge as much as possible too.  All that accumulation that I've spoken of…it's very real. A few weeks ago, we went through the dining room and managed to collect a huge box of old mail that was later burned in the barnyard. Empty cardboard boxes were flattened and bundled. This past Saturday, we managed to get mom upstairs in my sister's old bedroom where she moved when she got older and tired of all the bright lime green floors and sunshine yellow walls of our childhood bedroom. We went through boxes and boxes and boxes. We sorted the items. To St. Vincent's (a local charity), to Laura's children (all young adults with children of their own, but still in need of household things) and to the trash. The last one was the toughest, because as I've mentioned mom doesn't like to throw anything away. "Waste not, want not." 

On Monday, I took some old egg foam to the Humane Society. They can use it for the animals' beds, I guess. I took about 5 boxes to St. Vincent's and I helped my sister take all her booty to her house (across the road and through the woods from mom's) to distribute to her children. It felt like progress, small progress, but progress none-the-less.  There is much more to go.  Literally, go.

Another thing that I know after 53 years is that life is all about the details.  Noticing them. Embracing them. Sharing them with Harry. Teaching him to notice the world around him and to appreciate it. My mother raised her three children to see…to really see. To see the warm tones of a sunrise, the intricate details of a snowflake, the artistic flair of Jack Frost, the deep blue of the sky on a sunny day. I've always lived that way and it is, perhaps, what made me a good photographer at the time.  I noticed around me what others didn't see or maybe even just ignored. Life in a small, slowly moving city, allows me to dust that skill off even a bit more. But what it really has done is given me more time to see.  I'm trying to take advantage of that time. Time that will seem much less available once I'm employed again.

 Jack Frost.

Winter sunrise.

Horse barn.

Inside garage door.

Jack Frost on the garage door window.